Proposal for Introducing a Digital Aesthetic Dentistry Course in Undergraduate Program: Contents and Ways of Administration

Background: Nowadays, digital dentistry is a fundamental skill that dentists need to acquire at this time. The digital workflow has gained acceptance and is widely used in most disciplines of dentistry. For this reason, it might be advisable to include this content in the undergraduate curriculum. The aim of this work was to create a course in digital aesthetic dentistry and evaluate its effectiveness. Methods: Dental students at the University of Verona (from third to sixth year) participated in a 2-h course on photography, digital aesthetic analysis, and digitally planned rehabilitations. Students were randomly divided into two groups, the first group attending the course with video tutorials and the second group attending the traditional class with slides. The students’ ability to perform digital aesthetic analysis and rehabilitation was tested. In addition, a questionnaire was completed to determine student satisfaction with the course and method of delivery. Statistical analysis was performed. Results: The course was highly appreciated, especially by the students who received the video tutorials. Good results were obtained in the performance of digital analysis and rehabilitation, which were better in the first group. Conclusions: Digital aesthetic dentistry was a success in terms of newly acquired skills. From this point of view, the proposal of a course on this subject in the undergraduate curriculum deserves a close evaluation. The video tutorial method seems to be a good way to teach operative digital procedure

Orthodontics Surgical Assistance (Piezosurgery®): Experimental Evidence According to Clinical Results

Orthodontic tooth movement (OTM) is based on intermitted or continuous forces applied to teeth, changing the mechanical loading of the system and arousing a cellular response that leads to bone adaptation. The traditional orthodontic movement causes a remodeling of the alveolar bone and changes in the periodontal structures that lead to tooth movement. The use of a piezoelectric instrument in orthodontic surgery has already shown great advantages. The purpose of this study is to rank the behavior of inflammatory mediators in accelerating orthodontic tooth movement. Ten patients with malocclusion underwent orthodontic surgical treatment, which included a first stage of surgically guided orthodontic movement (monocortical tooth dislocation and ligament distraction, MTDLD) to accelerate orthodontic movements. In all cases, corticotomy was performed by Piezosurgery. Bone and dental biopsy was executed to evaluate changes in the cytokines IL-1beta, TNF-alpha and IL-2 in different time intervals (1, 2, 7, 14 and 28 days). The molecular mediators are IL-1 beta, TNF-alpha and IL-2. Immediately after the surgical procedure there was a mild expression of the three molecular markers, while the assertion of IL-1 beta and TNF-alpha reached the maximum value after 24 h and 48 h, indicating a strong activation of the treated tissues. The Piezosurgery® surgical technique induces an evident stress in short times, within 24–48 h from the treatment, but it decreases significantly during the follow-up. © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland

Episodic future thinking following vmPFC damage: Impaired event construction, maintenance, or narration?

Abstract OBJECTIVE: Functional neuroimaging and lesion studies show that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) is implicated in episodic future thinking (EFT), yet its role remains unclear. In this study, we sought to (a) confirm recent findings of impaired EFT in patients with lesions to the vmPFC (vmPFC patients) using a new task, and (b) investigate the influence of nonepisodic mechanisms, namely, narrative construction and working memory maintenance, on vmPFC patients' EFT performance. METHOD: vmPFC patients and healthy participants imagined future events using pictures as cues, described pictures, or described pictures while maintaining them in working memory after an observation phase. RESULTS: Compared with the controls, vmPFC patients produced less specific reports across all conditions, as indicated by fewer internal (episodic) but a similar number of external (semantic) details. However, controlling for description and working memory performance did not eliminate group differences in EFT. Moreover, vmPFC damage reduced the proportion of internal-to-total details for EFT only. CONCLUSIONS: These results indicate that EFT problems in vmPFC patients are not merely the reflection of problems in maintaining in working memory and narrating events, but, more likely, of an impairment upstream, in creating novel events. (PsycINFO Database Recor

Single-step full-face surgical treatment of the facial profile

Objective: The present study was performed in order to describe how much affordable, feasible and straightforward is the approach the authors called "single stage full face surgical profileplasty", tailored to greatly improve the surgery of the facial profiling setting and achieving a complete profile correction at the same time. Materials and methods: From January 2010 to May 2019, 113 patients (95 females and 18 males; ages 19-63 years) were surgically treated for the full-face profile amelioration. Profile correction was performed by using a combination of five procedures out of other various previously experienced: Forehead fat grafting, Rhinoplasty, Lip fat grafting, Genioplasty and Submental Liposuction. All patients were assessed at 1, 3, 6 and 12 months following surgery for assessing the Surgical Profile Treatment (SPT) outcome and any possible side effects of the combined treatment. Facial profile stability at one year was taken as the completion point of this treatment. The Arnett's "Soft tissue cephalometric analysis" (1999) was used to clinically evaluate the soft tissues before and after the Surgical Profile Treatment. Patients' satisfaction was measured with the Client Satisfaction Questionnaire-8" (CSQ-8) at 3 and 12 months after surgery. Statistics were used for Arnett's evaluation. Results: Almost all the values were consistent and reached the normal ranges indicated by Arnett, (p<0.001) confirming that the desired results of the surgical profileplasty have been achieved. Conclusion: Single stage full face surgical profile treatment helps in correcting faults of the global facial deformity and even in every single treated area, providing an overall improvement in face aesthetics and harmony. Obtaining the simultaneous correction in the whole face has also the advantage of avoiding multiple surgical procedures, reducing post-op discomfort and the overall risks for the patient due to multiple surgical and anesthetic procedures

Un raro aspetto istologico di fibromixoma odontogeno mandibolare

OBJECTIVESFibromyxoma is a benign locally aggressive odontogenic tumor with a mesenchymal origin, how-ever its nature is controversial. The World Health Organization both in 2005 classification and 2017 describes it as odontogenic myxoma; at the same time, some authors classify fibromyxoma as a subtype of odontogenic myxoma comprising only a small percent-age of it. Due to its rarity, this tumor is not well known and, especially, it is not well histologically described. The only physical examination does not allow performing a definitive diagnosis and. frequently, differential diagnoses are carried out in order to shed some light on the nature of neoplasms. Anyway, the surgical removal of this lesion is always recommended and this condition allows carrying out a histological examination. Referral of this case to our attention was surely due to difficulties in differential diagnosis because of complexities in recognize, classify and approach this kind of little-known lesion. Histological analysis plays a key role in diagnosis of this kind of lesions; actually it is likely to have several histological forms of this neoplasm. The aim of this work is to bring to the attention a rare histological aspect of a surgically treated odontogenic mandibular fibromyxoma, and to describe histological features in order to provide a more specific typing of lesion.MATERIALS AND METHODSA 51 years-old caucasian man was assessed at Section of Oral and Maxilb-facial Surgery of University of Verona, three months later of a swelling appearance in the vestibular fornix between lower left canine and premolar. Due to rarity of the disease and lack of clinical knowledge at the moment in this field, patient was referred to our attention after several inconclusive differential diagnoses. Physical examination showed a hard swelling in the vestibular fornix between left lower canine and first lower premolar for three months. An oral surgical intervention was carried out in order to remove the neoplasm entirely; therefore a histological analysis was performed. Physical and computed tomography examinations allowed assuming a fibromyxoma, histological analysis confirmed the diagnosis.RESULTSHistological analysis defined lesion as a fibrous-myxoid with discrete cellularity, without significant atypia, including bone chips. Bland stellate fibroblastic cells embedded in a myxoid-fibrous matrix were highlighted, proving the diagnosis of fibromyxoma.CONCLUSIONSThere is reason to state that fibromyxoma is a very heterogeneous tumor therefore high accuracy in diagnosis is required, by using both instrumental and histological approaches. The clinical observation alone, both presurgery and post-surgery, is not a sufficiently reliable indicator to perform a firm diagnosis of this kind of neoplasm. The special circumstances of this clinical case seemed to state that confirmed diagnosis and typing are achievable exclusively by histological analysis.CLINICAL SIGNIFICANCEIn view of the fact that fibromyxoma is a rare form of tumor, not yet well histologically described, the clinical case presented strongly suggests to perform, given the need to always remove the lesion, an histological examination to better characterize the tumor. Following these advices could be make possible to achieve a firm diagnosis and to increase knowledge in classifying several different forms of fibromixoma and, maybe, in approaching them

Episodic future thinking and future-based decision-making in a case of retrograde amnesia

We investigated episodic future thinking (EFT) and future-based cognition and decision-making in patient SG, who developed a dense retrograde amnesia following hypoxia due to a cardiac arrest. Despite intact general cognitive and executive functioning, SG was unable to remember events from his entire lifetime. He had, however, relatively spared anterograde memory and general semantic knowledge. Voxel-based morphometry detected a reduction of gray matter in the thalamus, cerebellum and fusiform gyrus bilaterally, and, at a reduced threshold, in several regions of the autobiographical memory network, including the hippocampi. We show that SG is unable to imagine personal future events, but can imagine fictitious events not self-relevant and not located in subjective time. Despite severely impaired EFT, SG shows normal attitudes towards the future time, and normal delay discounting rates. These findings suggest that retrieval of autobiographical information from long-term memory is necessary for EFT. However, relatively spared anterograde memory and general semantic knowledge may be sufficient to allow construction of fictitious experiences. As well, EFT is not necessary to drive future-oriented cognition and choice. These findings highlight the relation between autobiographical memory and EFT, and the fractionation of human temporal consciousness. Moreover, they contribute to our understanding of retrograde amnesia as an impairment of memory as well as future thinking

Glass-laser in skin resurfacing

Following our survey, we can appreciate that a variety of laser platforms exist to rejuvenate the skin by resurfacing the outer layer of the skin as well as heating the lower layers of the dermis. Based on reliable clinical effectiveness and a limited side effect profile, we can confirm that non-ablative fractionated technologies greatly improve the appearance of lentigines, rhytids, eliminate sun damage, attenuate scarring due to acne and other causes and treat hyper-pigmentation. The Fraxel® (Solta Medical) laser system delivers pulses across a wide range of density and energy levels. We determined that when increasing the pulse energy this led to an increase in thermolysis micro zone (MTZ) depth and width without damaging the surrounding tissue. Due to its performance and various clinical applications, Fraxel® Laser can be optimally considered to be the gold-standard for skin rejuvenation

Hyaluronic acid: in vitro and in vivo analysis, biochemical properties and histological and morphological evaluation of injected filler

No human model has emerged as an accepted standard to evaluate tissue filler longevity